It’s not just about the result in Etobicoke Centre in last year’s federal election — this week’s Supreme Court hearing is being cast as a test of citizens’ faith in elections.

Conservative member of Parliament Ted Opitz narrowly won the Etobicoke Centre seat with just 26 more votes than the incumbent Liberal on May 2, 2011. A dispute over the results heads to the Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday.

OTTAWA—The dispute over the 2011 election results in Etobicoke Centre is escalating into a test of faith in the country’s democratic machinery as it heads to the Supreme Court of Canada this week.

All sides in the dispute — the Conservatives, who won the riding, the Liberals who lost, and Elections Canada, which is in charge of the process — are arguing that the integrity of the voting system is at stake in the battle over Etobicoke Centre.

Late last week, Elections Canada even weighed in with new evidence to present at the country’s highest court, which shows that the Ontario Superior Court may have tossed out legitimate votes when it ruled last spring that the 2011 results were invalid and a new by-election would have to be held.

Conservative MP Ted Opitz narrowly won the seat with just 26 more votes than the incumbent Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj on May 2, 2011.

But during the earlier trial, Superior Court Justice Thomas Lederer declared that 79 votes were invalid — more than triple the winning margin — so the “technical irregularities” could have affected the outcome.

Elections Canada, however, has found in a subsequent probe that 44 of those rejected votes came from people who were indeed on the national voters’ list, though perhaps not residents of the riding. This new evidence emerged only at the eleventh hour, in a motion filed last Thursday in Ottawa.

Conservatives are saying that this new discovery means that the 2011 results should stand — that the Superior Court went too far in ruling Etobicoke Centre results null and void.

Chief Electoral Officer “Marc Mayrand and Elections Canada have investigated and found that the majority of the questionable voters in Etobicoke Centre according to Judge Lederer’s decision were in fact qualified voters,” Conservative party spokesman Fred DeLorey said Friday.

“This is a significant development, given Judge Lederer himself openly asked this question in his initial ruling . . . We are hopeful the Supreme Court of Canada will review this relevant evidence uncovered by Elections Canada.”

Wrzesnewskyj is pushing for a by-election, as soon as possible, saying the voters of Etobicoke Centre were denied a properly run election.

But Tuesday’s hearing in Ottawa is an appeal of the Superior Court decision, launched by Opitz, who stands to lose the seat he’s held for the past year if the Supreme Court agrees with the lower-court ruling.

Both sides are saying that democracy itself is on trial this week.

“Confidence in the electoral process and Parliament itself is undermined if elections are too easily overturned and contested election applications become a readily accessible weapon or tool in the hands of losing candidates,” Opitz and his lawyers argue in their documents filed for Tuesday’s hearing.

“Elected representatives and the government itself, particularly in a minority Parliament, cannot function under a cloud of suspicion and uncertainty that could easily arise after every close election. Canadians require certainty and finality in the results of elections in order to have confidence in the government and are entitled to have a member of Parliament who effectively represents their interests both at home and in Ottawa.”

Wrzesnewskyj uses much the same kind of language to make his case for a by-election, in the documents he’s filed in advance of the hearing.

“This case concerns the confidence that Canadians must have in our electoral process. If that confidence is eroded, it follows that the interest of Canadians in, and respect for, government will be similarly diminished,” he argues.

Elections Canada, for its part, appears to recognize that the stakes are high in this case and in its filing with the Supreme Court, has gone to some lengths to assert that Canada’s voting system is indeed run fairly and properly. The factum filed on behalf of Canada’s chief electoral officer, Marc Mayrand, and election officials who worked in Etobicoke Centre argue that training and resources were not lacking, and that due diligence was the rule, not the exception.

In total, Elections Canada, points out, about 180,000 people were pressed into service on May 2, 2011, with another 7,000 on standby. In Etobicoke Centre alone, more than 700 people were involved in the election effort.

“These workers perform complex tasks under difficult conditions. They are required to apply multiple rules in a setting that is unfamiliar and can be adversarial. The experience can vary from being routine and dull to being fraught with the tension that arises in a closely fought election,” Elections Canada says in its documents filed with the Supreme Court.

“As with any endeavour, there is always the possibility of human error. The likelihood of error is heightened by a number of factors particular to the electoral context, including the large number of rules, the number of people involved (both as workers and electors), the short period of work, the length of polling day and the consequent fatigue, and the pressure inherent in the nature of the work.”

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